Photo by Dennis Hallinan / Getty
It slipped from her hand on a small street connecting Gordon Square and Woburn Place in London. At 5pm in December the sky was billowing with oily black clouds: the balloon was pink and filled with helium and rose with considerable speed. As I heard the small, infantile protest that never seems to get any easier, I scanned my brain for something to tell her. The balloon would go and live in a tree, or on a roof, snagged on a TV aerial. Another child would find it tomorrow somewhere and be very happy. But as it ascended vertically above the Quaker Centre on Euston Road and became so small that my retinas shuddered trying to keep it in view, it was clear it would never be seen again by anyone. Heaven opened its black arms. What happens to a balloon, when you let go?
Helium is lighter than air, which is why a helium balloon rises in the first place. It will travel up and up into the sky, to a point where the air is sufficiently thin for the balloon and the surrounding air to share the same density. As the air pressure drops, the helium inside the balloon will expand, and burst the shell into pieces. This will happen at somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 feet, or two to four miles – less high than a jumbo jet flies, so don’t tell your kid that someone will look out the window and see their balloon bobbing there, though they could possibly pass one after take-off. The balloon will burst within around 12 hours. Occasionally, if it is not overfilled, or has been leaking, or does not rise too high and is lucky enough to catch a strong current, it may travel: two children’s balloons let go in the UK were found in Germany, 900 miles away.
Lost balloons disturb grown-ups more than they disturb children. It is a strong parental reflex to see, in them, a parallel in adult emotional experience, and to imagine that this small moment of loss is training for a life of loss to come. But our children get distressed and upset about a hundred things in every day, and we show little real curiosity about any of those. An adult’s imaginative fantasies – the balloon is on the moon! – are a grinning attempt to protect ourselves from the pain.
Maybe kids want the truth, as I would rather have known that my giant and dirty bear, Peanut, was in the skip, rather than perpetually “on holiday” in the 1980s. Next time you’re at Winter Wonderland and your child lets go of a balloon, try telling them that it will rise three miles over the next 12 hours, and then expand and pop into pieces. I guarantee you won’t make things any worse.
Treat yourself or a friend this Christmas to a New Statesman subscription for just £2
[Further reading: Reluctant Cheats: a story by Anton Chekhov]
Content from our partners